McClung's Sping 2012

McClung's Magazine Sping 2012 issue

SPRING 2012
MISSING&
MURDERED
582 documented cases of
aboriginal women in Canada
What has been done?
PLUS
Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Lost Girls
How an entire sex is Disappearing in the country
The Beauty Pageant Debate
Two former queens stir up the stage
Social Media: The Great Gender Divide
How do men & women network online differently?
POETRY
02| McClungs Spring 2012
Illustrations by LAUREN GATTI
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McClungs Spring 2012 |03
er.
EDITORS
Canada does not have a good track record when it comes to how it treats its Aboriginal women.
NWAC’s campaign Sisters in Spirit (which has lost funding) counted 582 missing or murdered Aboriginal women in its database. Those numbers are growing. Plenty knew these women, and knew them well.
They have been taken from their homes, from shelters, and from the streets. They continue to go missing.
They continue to be murdered. The stinging aftermath of their deaths affect their families in profound
ways that will never go away. We ask what has gone wrong in Rhiannon Russell’s story on page 22.
Canada is not alone in undervaluing its women. In India, there has been a long-standing culture
of unwanted girls, and a preference to birth males, that is creating a shift in gender ratio that could have
large, unfavorable implications. Otiena Ellwand explores the stereotypes, complications and controversies – of sex-selective attitudes on page 16.
Also internationally in this issue we look at a new trend in the Netherlands that has seen an
increase of women who have radicalized the housewife image, preferring staying in to raise their kids,
to working full-time and sending the little ones off to daycare. These women redefine and stretch our
parameters of womanhood and remind us that it is what we make it. Their perspectives are reminiscent
of earlier days when women were expected to stay home. But their homemaking ways are nowhere near
trite, and rather represent a group of women who know what they want – and how to get it. Nicole Clark
offers her insight on page 11.
In terms of what it means to be a woman, we target the health risks associated with cosmetics,
and begin to question what really is in all of those products and whether or not we should be slathering
them on day after day in our photo essay on page 25.
Remember to check out our site www.mcclungs.ca, add us to Facebook (www.facebook.com/
mcclungs) and follow us on Twitter (@mcclungs).As always, we welcome feedback and can be reached
at mcclungs@ryerson.ca
Sincerely,
Samantha Anderson and Niki Singh
EDITORIAL
Editors-in-Chief
Samantha Anderson
Niki Singh
Managing Editors
Julianna McDermott
Claire Prime
Assitant Editor
Jannen Belbeck
Head of Research
Elayne Teixeira-Millar
Handling Editors
Breanne Nicholson
Olivia Stefanovich
Rhiannon Russell
Portia Favro
Natasha Fonseka
Gin Sexsmith
Tashika Gomes
Copy Editors
Olivia Stefanovich
Rhiannon Russell
Victoria Nguyen
Victoria Kuglin
Fact-Checkers
Erica Lenti
Hana Shafi
Tricia Strachan
Veronika Latkina
Khadija Khan
Nora Meszaros
ART
Art Director
Tammy Lung
Assistant Art Director
Michael Guo
Illustrators
Lauren Gatti
Jessica Ku
Christopher Rosier
Ybb Villegas
Photography Director
Katherine Engqvist
Assistant Photo Director
Brian Batista Bettencourt
Photographers
Leila Reyhani
Lucy Lu
Nick Spector
Nicole Witkowski
Diana Duong
ONLINE
Web Designer
Julie Tran
Social Media Director
Portia Favro
Online Editors
Roohi Sahajpal
Lakshine Sathiyanathan
BUSINESS
Advertising & Outreach Director
Catherine Nguyen
Marketing & Promtions Directors
Breanne Nicholson
Angy Xi
Circulation Directors
Yeugenia Kleiner
Julia Mei
WRITERS
Acey Rowe, Dawn Flora-Angue,
Elizabeth Mudenyo, Eric Zaworski,
Fatima Syed, Gin Sexsmith, Lisa
Coxon, Nicole Clark, Otiena Ellwand,
Rachel Phan, Rhiannon Russell, Roohi
Sahajpal, Samantha Anderson, Shannon Clarke, Sinead Mulhern, Tammy
Lung, Tashika Gomes
SPECIAL THANKS TO:
04| McClungs Spring 2012
Photos taken by NICOLE WITKOWSKI,
Cover names from SISTERS IN SPIRIT
Chris Kaufman, Oakham House, Point One
Graphics, Jaclyn Mika, Jessica Chiu, Avery
Lowell, Howard Davis, Katie Davis, Christine
Walker, Nakita Singh Hans, Rebecka Calderwood, Portia Favro, Lynn Cunningham and
Tim Falconer.
SHORTS/
Q & A/
CHicks That Code
P. 06
NELLIES
P. 07
P. 08
P. 10
FEATURES/
TIMELINE/
P. 11
P. 16
P. 22
P. 30
P. 38
1988
1988
Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of
Burma’s independence hero Aung
San, is thrust into politics in 1988,
Benazir Bhutto is the first woman to
be elected prime minister of Pakistan
and becomes the first woman elected
Women in Politics: A TimelinE
P. 14
INFOGRAPHIC/
Gendered Networks
P. 25
She Said/She Said
P. 32
Her Story/
Playing the V-Card
P. 34
D-I-Y/
Bra Measuring
1966
Susan B. Anthony becomes the
Photo Essay: Truth in Advertising
Competing for the Crown:
Great or Not-So-Great
Going Dutch
Lost Girls of India
Missing, Murdered,but not Forgotten
A Model City
Feminism Across the Generations
1872
P. 20
Photo Essay/
MISSing the Music
Giving “SLut” a New Name
Sex & Dance
Indira Gandhi becomes the first female prime minister of
India. She quickly becomes popular after India’s victory in
the war of 1971 against Pakistan. Her politics, however,
cause controversy in 1984 when she tries to resolve the
political problems in the state of Punjab. In an attempt to
remove Sikh militants from Punjab’s holiest site, the Golden
Temple, Gandhi calls for an assault by the Indian military on
Q & A with Michelle Brock
P. 37
Reviews/
Reviews
Comic: Confessions at the Club
P. 40
P. 42
P. 19
McClungs Spring 2012 | 05
SHORTS
By SINEAD MULHERN
These ladies are bringing a whole new meaning
on the word ‘geek’
H
it a few keys. The codes are in.
Ladies Learning Code is a non-profit group that teaches women about
computer coding. Their first event was
held in August 2011. Tickets sold out in a
day. Since then, the group has held events
monthly. Some women use the workshops to learn how to build blog sites or
improve their communication skills.
Founder Heather Payne sits confidently in the Xtreme Labs office on
Yonge Street and explains the purpose of
the group and the challenges facing women in the tech industry. Demand for the
workshops is increasing, wait lists have
06| McClungs Spring 2012
lengthened. Every workshop sees around
80 participants with about 20 volunteers.
While the workshops are geared towards
women, there are often male participants
and volunteers. “I like to show that this is
supported by both sexes,” Payne explains.
She says support for women in computer programming is important given the
expanding field and the women in it being
historically underrepresented.
The idea started in May 2011 when
Payne was on a business trip in Los Angeles. While looking to learn more about
technology, she found a group called
PyLadies who held a coding workshop
for beginners. Realizing there was a need
for something similar in Toronto, Payne
tweeted to see if anyone wanted to start a
group. She received 12 replies and shortly
after Ladies Learning Code began.
At the workshop about 80 women
attending finish a lunch of wraps and
veggies and turn away from their large
monitors to focus on the volunteer introductions. “I’m Kate and I’m here because
I don’t work with any ladies at all!” In
2009, only 22.3 per cent of Canadian
women worked in engineering, science
and math. This percentage was up less
than three per cent from 1987.
The Waterloo region is home to more
than 450 technology companies and with
the University of Waterloo having one of
the largest computer science programs
in the country, the city has a knack for
producing Canadian techies. In 1967,
University of Waterloo’s Computing Centre grew into a separate faculty, which
was the first in North America. However
in 2010, only 6.2 per cent of the students
who entered first year computer engineering at the University of Waterloo were
female.
Being a part of this minority motivated Waterloo graduate Kitty Shum to
volunteer with Ladies Learning Code.
“Technology and programming is not a
scary thing,” says Shum, who encourages
women to enter and stay in the industry,
and prove that the field is not just for men.
Payne agrees and says that women participate in the workshops for many reasons.
“Technology has become quite sexy and
they just want to learn more about what
happens behind your screen,” says Payne.
Jane Man works for a tech-savy company
and while she knows some basic computer
coding from work, she says she needed
to expand her knowledge, and took the
workshop.
For the most part, Ladies Learning
Code teaches women who already have
careers. But this year, the group of volunteers introduced themselves to young girls
interested in code. “Hopefully, if they stay
interested in technology they will pursue
it as a career,” says Payne. M
Illustrations by JESSICA KU
Iran doesn’t allow women to sing in public,
but that doesn’t stop Maral Afsharian
NELLIES
A
nyone visiting Maral Afsharian’s home in downtown Tehran
is greeted by 2 dogs: a large and friendly boxer, and an equally large Terrier-cross. The apartment has been described as
“more East Village than Islamic Republic” and a giant tree, home
to an Iguana (“baby dragon” to Afsharian) stands on one side
of the main room. A coffee table outside of the bedroom boasts
ornaments and other things from India. British trip-hop band
Archive’s new album is playing.
Afsharian, 25, is a female bass player and underground
vocalist from Tehran. She was the first female rock singer to perform onstage in Iran in 2007. The same day, she and 230 other
people were arrested by the Iranian police during an outdoor concert. Despite not being able to play music, sign a label or make
any money with her music in country, she chooses to stay. For
most of the past three decades since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Iranian musicians have had to record abroad and women are
not allowed to sing. But now, the music scene of Tehran is bubbling up, and young people are gathering together to perform their
music. Afsharian is the only woman in this community, equipped
with a powerful vocal range and political lyrics, such as these
in ‘Autotomy’:“I had to dress like a clown just to walk around/
To have a room to feel safe in this fuckin’ town/I couldn’t run
couldn’t hide couldn’t help myself/I had to not talk about the way
I felt.”
The former lead singer of Plastic Wave (an electronic/rock
band that Afsharian started) says creating electronic music is new
to her. After the U.S embassy rejected her and her bands visas to
play SXSW in Texas, Afsharian became a solo artist. The musician has said that because she was the only girl in an Islamic
country doing “unusual things,” she was ostracized. “I wanted to
be strong and independent and guys didn’t like it,” she told Rolling Stone Middle East. Afsharian was not deterred, and wrote the
song, “Autotomy” (her favorite), from the bottom of her heart, she
says.
Afsharian was 19 when she started singing, her voice heavy
and hypnotic. Performing in public in her heavy metal band
“Kraken” was not an option, so the then 19-year-old Afsharian
and her two friends focused on improving their skills, mostly
playing covers. “I was already playing bass guitar in a band and
also attending music school and we had voice lessons at school
and my classmate saw me practicing and he liked my voice and
we started making songs together,” she says. Then she attended
the Tehran Conservatory of Music. A dream since childhood,
being a singer has always been on her mind. Afsharian’s mother
is a traditional singer and when watching her mother perform at
shows and rehearsals, Afsharian would imagine herself singing
the same song. Eventually, she would win best mood melancholy
song in the AVIMA awards, the Asian Indie Music Awards. She
has performed in Armenia, Tajikistan, the UAE and the Netherlands.
With her previous band, the young woman travelled to Kabul
to meet other musicians and play four or five shows, after rehearsing together and crossing the border to Tajikistan in a very old
Photo taken by LEILA REYHANI
MISSING
THEMUSIC
By SAM ANDERSON & LEILA REYHANI
boat, because they were refused permission to cross over a new
multi-million-dollar bridge. To her, this was one of the best experiences as she and the others sang during the entire trip there, one
of the men with an acoustic guitar in hand. They serenaded the
Tajik border police with an impromptu jam, who then took over
and played traditional Soviet songs for them. When the group
reached the destination of their first gig – an Irish pub – Afsharian
prompted the crowd to dance by taking the stage herself. With
delicate features and striking brown eyes, she says she has found
inspiration in many places, including bands such as Massive
Attack, PJ Harvey and Nine Inch Nails. “I like trip-hop, especially when it’s rock influenced. I like minimal electronic music,
sometimes little bit of alternative rock, post industrial, post rock,”
she says. In her own work, Afsharian sings in English because it
is a harsher sound that she prefers to accompany electronica.
The musician says the most important thing that inspires her
is life and her experiences with people. “I want to be able to have
the connection I want with my listeners especially with my lyrics.
I want to make it easy for them to feel what I feel while writing
music,” she says. But working with people is not the only thing
that inspires Afsharian – another big part of her life is dedicated to
finding homes for stray cats and dogs found on the street. When
asked if she has ever felt genuinely scared about being outspoken, Afsharian replies, “Honestly, I have. You never know what’s
coming next. Sometimes I have to think a lot before talking about
things to others.” She says young musicians should not give up on
playing music, and that is the only advice she can give. M
McClungs Spring 2012 | 07
NELLIES
By SHANNON CLARKE
L
ast summer, Heather Jarvis went to
a friend’s cottage for a day. She had
no Internet connection, no cellphone
service and no access to her email. It was
the first day in four and a half months, her
host noted, that she was not on her phone
for SlutWalk-related matters.
In the course of a few whirlwind
months, SlutWalk Toronto had become
her entire life and it is hard to imagine
Jarvis relaxing in cottage country, hours
out of Toronto. “What SlutWalk is now, is
never supposed to be what happened,” she
says. “It was so unexpected.”
Jarvis has become a regular media
figure in everything from CNN to alternative weeklies like The Grid. She’s been
praised from renowned feminists Gloria
Steinheim and Jessica Valenti, invitations
to speak at universities across the province (including her own) and becoming
the unofficial spokesperson for a movement that has spread to more than 100
cities. She has received death and rape
threats and has had to defend her opinions
to journalists, bloggers, classmates, and
even friends.
She certainly did not expect 3,000
men and women would show up at Queen’s
Park on April 3, or that, in a year, her life
08| McClungs Spring 2012
would change so drastically. “I still don’t
quite think I always believe what just happened or [that] my life is what it is,” she
says.
Jarvis, 26, first heard about Constable
Michael Sanguinetti’s comments at York
University’s violence prevention seminar on Facebook. He said that if women
wanted to avoid being raped they should
“avoid dressing like sluts.” The student
paper, Excalibur, reported the story and
Jarvis shared it with her friends. “I said
‘I’m so livid, I’m so furious, this makes
me want to go down to Toronto police
headquarters, bang on the door and tell
them to do better.’” Jarvis’ friend, Sonya
Barnett, suggested they do it and SlutWalk
began.
Feedback was unexpected and threw
Jarvis off-guard. Her history of organizing
around her campus and community did
not prepare her for what was coming. In
the six weeks between the development of
the idea and the march, at least ten other
cities picked up SlutWalk and it becoming
a global movement.
Activists began to contact SlutWalk
Toronto for advice and guidance. And
they were happy to give it, says Jarvis,
until it became too difficult to watch over
every march, in every city.
The decision, according to Jarvis,
wasn’t easy. When cities felt they needed
to change the name, Jarvis and the team
acknowledged that “slut” did not work for
every march. However, they did speak up
when one city wanted to call their event
“Not A SlutWalk”. “We really want people
to do what’s best for their city,” she says,
“But my concern, as always, is if every
city changed their name to something different, then we lose our cohesion.”
SlutWalk TO in particular, put
between themselves and the other cities
(though Jarvis is in touch with some organizers), the pioneering group has been the
target of most of the criticism. Some were
constructive, like the Open Letter to SlutWalk from the Black Women’s Blueprint
in Brooklyn, and others, like the Globe
and Mail’s Margaret Wente, were stubbornly dismissive.
Many times Jarvis has considered
quitting: when the criticism started to
come from classmates and groups she
respected. But still she remains, one of the
original five SlutWalk organizers standing. M
Photos taken by DIANA DUONG
NELLIES
How two women started the worldwide phenomenon
of SlutWalk
I
f life has wandered off course for
Heather Jarvis, Sonya Barnett has
stepped into another universe completely. Barnett, a sex-positive art director,
wife and mother, never considered herself
a feminist and was not an activist. When
she founded SlutWalk (the name was her
idea) she expected the the rally to be the
extent of it.
However, last summer, Barnett, 39,
posted a letter on the group’s website,
announcing her decision to step back from
SlutWalk Toronto. “The lead up to the
event was so stressful,” she says. “I almost
had a nervous breakdown twice. I couldn’t
do it anymore.”
The exhaustion started long before
the walk when Barnett was in contact with
the media and Toronto police. She was
responsible for telling them how many
protestors they should expect. Her answer
changed as interest grew.
Early in the event’s development,
Barnett purchased a domain name,
designed the logo that would be used in
SlutWalks around the world, coordinated
with her team to write a manifesto, recruited a researcher and prepared a speech to
read to what she thought would be a small
crowd at Queen’s Park. “I had worked on
my speech all night, not knowing if I was
going to be able to get anything out,” Barnett says. “It was probably one of the best
days of my life,” she adds.
By the time the massive crowd began
marching down University Avenue, the
energy was infectious. Jarvis walked in
front, Barnett in the back, and the protest
picked up supporters along the way. People were hugging, roller-blading, dancing,
some sharing personal stories. The crowd
was loud yet peaceful.
It was just the beginning.
Jarvis and Barnett were doing two
to three interviews a day, reading about
themselves and the march in papers and
online. By that time, they were in contact with women as far away as Australia.
They tried to keep the common threads of
the march together while other cities were
adapting it.
Barnett chose to leave her job at a
design agency in Toronto. The time
she was devoting to Slutwalk became too
much to ask of her otherwise understanding employers. She recalls her son, then
seven, saying “I don’t see you anymore.”
SlutWalk was hit with criticism, threats,
and scrutiny from every side. Though
the unexpected demands, dangers, and
the time away from her family were hard,
Barnett’s decision to leave came shortly
after reading a blog post by a woman from
South America made last spring. Aura
Blogando accused SlutWalk of white
supremacy and said, erroneously, that the
region would never embrace the movement.
SlutWalk Toronto has a mandate of
only responding to criticism when they
believe there is a chance for discourse,
and so they took their time responding.
“Being the person that I am, I’m ready to
say ‘fuck off, this is not who we are. We’re
not your enemy,’” Barnett says. They
eventually did post a response on their
Facebook page. The expectations were
tremendous. “I don’t know everything
about sex and gender [or] race and racial
issues. I’m learning as I go. And it’s frustrating because people expect you to know
everything before you do something,” she
says.
Barnett may not be a key organizer
anymore, but she is still exasperated by the
lack of progress with the Toronto police,
the feminist-infighting that has hurt SlutWalk, and the representation of the walk
as a bunch of women running around in
lingerie.
Colleen Westendorf, 27, contacted
SlutWalk immediately after attending the
march. A freelance writer, Westendorf
contacted an Irish journalist earlier this
year to address comments that made it
seem as though the “provocative” clothing was a uniform. “It’s always the aim
articles take, that this is a tactic Slutwalk
is using … it derails the greater conversation,” Westendorf says.
Barnett is “The Madame” of the
Keyhole Sessions, a sex-positive art
community in Toronto, and is currently
writing a book about her experience with
SlutWalk. She is proud of what SlutWalk has done. In her opinion, it has put
slut-shaming on the minds of people talking about sexual assault. But she knows
there is more to do, especially within law
enforcement and discussions about consensual sex. “It was never supposed to go
past April 3 and the fact that it has … that
is the best thing that could’ve happened,”
Barnett says. M
McClungs Spring 2012 | 09
NELLIES
F
Sex & Dance
Coco Framboise isn’t afraid to flaunt her sexuality
or nearly nine years, Coco Framboise,
a dancer, has become a dominant fixture in the Toronto burlesque scene.
Her signature large-scale props, which
include a giant candy apple covered in
holographic glitter is large enough to
double as a loveseat help her to stand out
among the sea of kick lines. But Framboise does not think burlesque is only about
sexuality.
Whether it is riding the giant apple
or “shoving a sprig of peacock feathers in
between my butt cheeks,” Framboise says
her show is more about creativity than
overt sexiness. “I am sexual, I hold that
space and I take up those actions,” she
says. “Sexual provocation and desire
are fun to paint with. It makes us
uncomfortable and it’s ridiculous
[because] when you look at it,
sex is just a lot of wobbly,
jangly bits.” She adds, “I’m
playing with the tension
around this thing that we all
kind of want. [And] I don’t
mind the objectification
as long as I’m doing the
objectification and doing it
subjectively.”
When she is not performing, Framboise runs
the Coco Framboise School
of Burlesque, which boasts
Toronto’s “most extensive dropin burlesque curriculum” for both
beginners and experienced performers. “I initially wanted to be a writer,” she
says. “I fell into burlesque because it combined being a writer and a dancer. I could
tell a narrative.”
While those narratives are fun and
creative, Framboise also defies the typical North American beauty ideal. “If that
[ideal] is tall, thin and blonde with blue
eyes, I think it’s really funny that I’m so
dissimilar from that,” she says. “I’m 5’2”,
I’m curvier, I have that Jamaican bounce
10| McClungs Spring 2012
By RACHEL PHAN
– to be able to do a full show in Vegas,
that rocks.” With large, expressive eyes
and a coy, megawatt smile, it is easy to see
why people come out in droves to see her
shimmy her self-proclaimed apple bottom
on stage.
Burlesque lets Framboise exercise
creative control
while also being
able to alternate between hysterically funny and sexy roles. “I don’t have to wait for
a role or an audition - I can just come up
with an idea and do it,” she says. “There’s
a short line between idea and execution
that appeals to me.”
While some female burlesque dancers
may have politically charged performances, Framboise does not have a specific
feminist manifesto. “I’m not really coming from a place where I feel that I’m
oppressed as a woman, or even as a black
person, and I don’t feel thwarted by men,”
she says. “If I had a different experience
with racism or sexism, then maybe that’d
be something that would come through in
my work.”
Framboise served as the co-producer
of the Toronto Burlesque Festival and has
had a hand in the successes of a number
of up-and-coming burlesque performers.
Miss dd Starr, Lady Phoenix, Miss. Pearl
Petit-Four, Charlie Quinn, Lady Bona and
others have all been her supporting dancers – also known as Coco’s Bonbons, a
group in which she auditions and recruits
new members all the time.
Framboise says the burlesque scene
in Toronto has steadily evolved in recent
years - at the beginning of her career,
she says there were only about two
shows in the city almost every
month. Today, there can be a few
burlesque shows in one week.
Framboise has been on stage
across the world - her passport
boasts stamps from Switzerland, the United Kingdom,
Italy, and the Netherlands.
Her next tour will include
Quebec City, Long Beach, and
Australia.
With an increase in
burlesque performers, she says
her shows have become more
high-quality, as they become more
polished and put-together. “Costumes
have improved dramatically. There’s a lot
more glam, a lot more show,” Framboise
says. “People put more time and effort
into their shows.”
But Framboise still has to find ways
to keep her burlesque show evolving. “It’s
hard performing shows and trying to get to
that level where your act is iconic enough
and unique enough that they have to come
to you to get it,” she says. “I have to show
something that people have never seen
before – I want them to remember.” M
Photo taken by CARL WILLIAM W. HEINDL
FEATURES
By NICOLE CLARK
A trend in the Netherlands has the majority of
Dutch women working part-time
Illustrations by MICHAEL GUO
McClungs Spring 2012 |11
A
leid Borghardt works 12 hours a week so
she can pick her children up from school
and serve them milk and cookies when they
come home. She enjoys working as a social worker in the mornings, but values spending time with
her two young sons in the afternoon. While her
husband is at work, Borghardt reads her children
stories, makes them snacks and prepares dinner
for her family. Some feminists may argue that she
is reverting the progress of women by playing a
smaller role in the workforce to fulfill a more traditional role as a mother and wife – but that’s not
quite how Dutch women see things.
“It’s great as a woman to be able to decide
what life you want. You don’t have to choose to
stay at home or be a career women, you can do
both,” Borghardt says. “It’s empowering.”
Borghardt lives in Utrecht, Netherlands,
where parents drive their small children down
cobblestone roads in rectangular wooden boxes
placed on the front of their bicycles. Most of the
time there are no seat belts in these contraptions,
and other times the children just sit on the back
of the bike or on their mother’s lap. As the fourth
largest city in the Netherlands, Utrecht is everything one pictures when thinking
of Amsterdam - canals, coffee
shops and historic buildings but with far more families and
fewer tourists.
In this country, women tend to chose to work fewer
hours to take care of their children or to spend more time
doing other things they enjoy.
In Utrecht, young women wear
high heels and dresses to school, and black converse high-tops to the club. You won’t see them
in very revealing clothing, but they openly speak
about sex. They travel, study hard for university
degrees and have the choice between part-time
or full-time work. In the Netherlands, women
have more options than other places and there are
fewer stigmas about staying home to take care of
children.
Dutch society places such a high importance on family values and part-time jobs flourish
because of that demand. The cost of daycare is
so high that women feel that their time would be
better spent staying home with their children and
working part-time, rather than handing over their
paychecks to babysitters.
Today it is estimated up to 75 per cent of
Dutch women work part-time. This statistic is up
from 2001, when nearly 60 per cent of working
Dutch women were employed part-time, compared to just 20 per cent of Canadian women.
Some Canadians may find these numbers astonishing, but if you ask a Dutch woman why she
works part-time, she will laugh in amusement.
Women working part-time isn’t new to the
Netherlands. In the 1980s, labour participation
rates by Dutch women were at a 40 per cent low,
with 60 per cent of these women working parttime. During the 1980s and 1990s, policymakers
began changing the way they looked at part-time
work and saw it as a way to encourage women to
join the workforce. Comparatively, 60 per cent of
Canadian women had jobs in the 1980s, with 25
per cent working part-time.
It is assumed that Dutch women are either
forward-thinking reverting to a traditional lifestyle. The concept of working full time and
sending your children to daycare is as foreign to
Dutch women as working part-time and staying
home is to North American women. “In Canada it
seems like it’s all or nothing,” says Borghardt.
She is one of many women who chose to
work part-time in order to have a central role in
the upbringing of her children. Borghardt says
because she chose to have children, it would not
be fair to send them to daycare every day. Instead,
she sends her sons to daycare once a week to
socialize with other children. Borghardt says she
would feel guilty if she sent them every day. She
does feel that women who work part-time miss
out on having more ambitious careers, but she is
happier with her decision. She feels a choice has
to be made when young children are part of the
equation.
Though Borghardt enjoys her career, she says
things would be different if that token dream job
from university. Joelle Lafeber, 22, is a student at
Utrecht University who likes to stay busy. She
may choose to work full time, but she is also
considering part-time work. She says women are
no longer forced to live a traditional family life
because the level of education is so high in the
Netherlands. “If you make enough money and
are happy financially, there is no harm in working part-time and doing other things you enjoy,”
“It’s great as a woman to be able to decide what life
you want. You don’t have to choose to stay at home
or be a career women, you can do both”
- like owning her own business - came along. “A
lot of women have more potential, but working
part-time means you cannot be the boss of a company,” she says. “You have to choose a career that
is not very ambitious. I’m sure that bothers some
women, but not me.”
Dr. Ria Van der Lecq chose to work part-time
first, then once her children were older she further
pursued her career. There is little room for professional development when women work as little as
12 hours a week and have to care for their children. Which is why, at 54, she returned to work
full time and is now the director of the liberal arts
and sciences department at Utrecht University.
Van der Lecq stresses that older women do not
have to give up their career goals because of their
age.
Both Borghardt and Van der Lecq say they
made the right decisions by choosing to be both
mother and worker. “For me, working part-time
and being happy are connected because I have
a feeling of freedom,” says Borghardt. “I enjoy
myself far more than I would having to work 50
hours a week, with the work never being done.”
In fact, many women now consider the possibility of working part-time upon graduation
she says.
A feeling of freedom might be the secret
behind the happiness of Dutch women, something discussed in Ellen de Bruin’s book
Dutch Women Don’t Get Depressed. The book
may mystify Dutch women, but de Bruin is
clear about her message, which she discuses in
an article published in 2007 by the New York
Times: “Personal choice is key: in the Netherlands people are free to choose their life
partners, their religion, their sexuality, we are
free to use soft drugs here, we can pretty much
say anything we like,” she writes. “The Netherlands is a very free country.”
Van der Lecq says she was happy working part-time and minding her children
because it gave her an escape from the
stresses of full-time work. She also saved
money from not having to send her children to daycare. “If daycare was cheaper
women would work more, but if you have
to pay everything you earn for daycare
your work better be very interesting,” says
Van der Lecq.
Dutch women may not be working
to obtain high positions and assert their
equality by gaining top jobs, but they
appear happier anyway. “I would never
be a housewife, but the combination of
family and part-time work is great,” says
Van der Lecq. M
TIMELINE
POLITICALLY CHAR
Women and politics have a lon
By ROOHI SAHAJPAL
1966
1872
Susan B. Anthony becomes the
first woman to vote, (albeit
illegally), in a U.S. presidential
election and is arrested. During
her trial, she gains prominence for
speaking for the women’s suffrage
movement. She never pays the
fine imposed on her for voting.
Fourteen years after Anthony’s
death, women are given the right
to vote on August 26, 1920, by the
19th amendment to the Constitution.
1906
Finland becomes the first
European country to give
women the right to vote and
19 women are elected to the
new 200-person Finnish
parliament.
Indira Gandhi becomes the first female prime minister of
India. She quickly becomes popular after India’s victory in
the war of 1971 against Pakistan. Her politics, however,
cause controversy in 1984 when she tries to resolve the
political problems in the state of Punjab. In an attempt to
remove Sikh militants from Punjab’s holiest site, the Golden
Temple, Gandhi calls for an assault by the Indian military on
the sacred temple. She is assassinated later that year by
her two Sikh bodyguards, who claim to be avenging the
assault upon their Sikh nation.
1960
Sirimavo Bandaranaike makes history as the world’s first elected
female prime minister in Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon). Bandaranaike comes into power after her husband Solomon Bandaranaike is assassinated in 1959. Her time in power is not easy. She
declares a state of emergency when a campaign is launched
against her after she replaces English with Sinhala as the official
national language. In 1964, her cabinet is defeated, but Bandaranaike comes back in power in 1970. She declares the country
a republic in 1972, changing its name to Sri Lanka. In 1994, her
daughter, Chandrika Kumaratunga, becomes president and
appoints her mother prime minister again, a position that Bandaranaike holds until her death in 2000.
1916 - 1960
Canada officially gives women the right to vote
in most provinces by federal law in 1916, although
women in Quebec and Aboriginal women were not
given the right to vote until 1940 and 1960.
14| McClungs Spring 2012
1979
$
Margaret Thatcher becom
United Kingdom. Her cons
ism.” She advocates for p
utilities, reform of the tra
social expenditures across
ing inflation, but unemplo
years in power. She serv
winning re-election in 198
She is also the first woman
Illustrations by TAMMY LUNG
RGED: A Timeline
ng history, or rather herstory...
2005
1988
1988
Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of
Burma’s independence hero Aung
San, is thrust into politics in 1988,
after returning to her country from
England to nurse her dying mother.
She addresses a crowd of several
hundred thousand people at a mass
rally and calls for a democratic
government. She soon becomes the
general secretary of the newly formed
National League for Democracy. She
spends the next six years of her life in
and out of military detention as she
fights for the democratic rights of the
Burmese people. She is awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.
Benazir Bhutto is the first woman to
be elected prime minister of Pakistan
and becomes the first woman elected
to head a Muslim country. Bhutto is
removed from office 20 months later
on charges of corruption. In 1993,
she is re-elected, but is again
removed in 1996. In 2007, she
returns to Pakistan as a popular
figure, likely to win the prime ministerial election once again. She is assassinated before the elections by
Islamic radicals on December 27,
2007.
$$$
mes the first female prime minister of the
servative politics are known as “Thatcherprivatization of state-owned industries and
ade unions, lowering taxes and reducing
s the board. Thatcher succeeds in reducoyment dramatically increases during her
ves as prime minister for three terms –
83 and 1987 – before resigning in 1990.
n to chair the G8.
Condoleezza
Rice
becomes the first AfricanAmerican
woman
to
become secretary of state
of the United States. In
this role, Rice dedicates
her time to create democratic and well-governed
states around the world,
especially in the Middle
East. She also creates a
high-level position, director of foreign assistance,
to oversee how the United
States
distributes
its
foreign aid. Rice holds this
position until 2009.
1993
Kim Campbell becomes
Canada’s first female
prime minister. Her
appointment
comes
after Prime Minister
Brian
Mulroney
announces his retirement
from
politics.
During her time as
prime minister, Campbell creates three new
ministries
health,
Canadian heritage and
public security - by
cutting down the cabinet
from 35 ministers to 23
ministers.
Campbell
only serves as prime
minister for five months.
2006
2007
Senator Hillary Clinton is the first
woman to be considered a top candidate for the U.S. presidency. She
eventually loses the Democratic
Party nomination to Barack Obama,
but later becomes a top member of
U.S. politics as secretary of state.
Nancy
Pelosi
becomes the first
female speaker of
the house when
Democrats
take
control
of
the
United
States
Congress. Pelosi
becomes the third
highest-ranking
official in the U.S.
government and
the
highestranking female in
American political
history.
McClungs Spring 2012 |15
FEATURES
I
n the past three decades, up to 12 million girls
have been aborted in India because of their
sex, according to research done by a team at
the Centre for Global Health Research (CGHR).
The number of girls aborted has reached crisis
proportions. According to the BBC, in 1961 there
were 976 girls for every 1,000 boys under the age
of seven. In 2011 there were only 914 girls. “How
can a country on one hand have the ambition and
demonstrate the possibility of becoming an economic super power and on the other hand have
incredibly serious problems?” asks Sonia Faleiro,
an Indian writer and reporter.
In India, boys are valued more than girls.
According to the Hindu religion, which is followed by over 80 per cent of the population, men
perform the last rites when their parents pass
away. They also continue the family lineage,
whereas when women marry, they assume the lineage of their husband’s family. But, women are
considered to be an expense, whereas men are
seen as an investment, largely because of a tradition called dowry.
Historically, the dowry was a one-time gift
given to their daughter, the new bride-to-be, as a
form of insurance. But it has become something
more than that—a competition, an obligation, a
contract. The more luxurious the dowry is, the
better the quality of the groom and the better the
chance of upward status mobility. One ancient
Hindu saying sums up the situation in India:
“Raising a daughter is like watering a neighbour’s
plant.”
16| McClungs Spring 2012
Photos taken by OTIENA ELLWAND
By OTIENA ELLWAND
Girls in South Asia
are often unwanted or
pushed aside in favour
of boys. Otiena Ellwand
takes a deeper look.
So, many families neglect, sell or abandon their daughters,
if they don’t abort them first.
“Parents sometimes try to deliberately infect umbilical
cords, not feed them as much as their brothers or immunize
them, so even after they’re born there’s still a long road ahead
for that little girl to actually survive,” says Sandy Krawitz, a
Chicago native who started the organization, the Society for the
Protection of the Girl Child, two years ago. “I felt that if I didn’t
do anything about it and we didn’t come together as organizations to do something about it, then very tragic things would
continue to happen in India for a very long time.”
Dr. Prabhat Jha is the director of CGHR and one of the
study’s lead researchers. “The most surprising result was that the
extent of selective abortions seems to have increased between
the 2001 and 2011 censuses. It used to be concentrated in the
North, but it has spread particularly into parts of the South and
the West.” In India, under the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques
Act, one can be imprisoned or fined if they reveal the sex of a
baby. But of the 800 doctors charged with ignoring the Act, only
55 have been convicted. “The government knows that a small
number of unsavoury doctors and providers are really the ones
responsible for most of the illegal sex determinations,” says Jha.
His research revealed that sex-selective abortion is most common among rich and educated families. The illegal sex-selective
market itself is worth an estimated $100 million (USD) per year.
“The government could clamp down and find the few bad apples
that are setting up clinics and advertising,” he says. “The way
it’s structured now is that these folks bribe the government officials to look the other way, but if you have enough public outcry
you’ll get the government to actually enforce the laws instead of
ignore them.”
While the statistics are startling, Jha says it’s important to
put the numbers into context. He says there is an average of
600,000 [sex selective abortions] per year. It’s a large number,
but there are 26 million births a year in India, of which half are
going to be female. So, Jha asserts that less than five per cent
of the female pregnancies in India are actually undergoing this
practice. “Ninety-five per cent of female pregnancies don’t end
up in anything like selective abortion,” he says.
Sharada Srinivasan, a professor of social science at York
University knows what it feels like when people misunderstand
those statistics. While in the Netherlands completing her PhD,
someone asked her if Indian people were getting rid of girls,
how was it that she survived? “I was completely taken aback,”
Srinivasan says, “because I don’t think I’d thought that somebody would think it’s a miracle that I, an Indian girl, am here
and I’d survived.”
Month old infant Veena was found abandoned at a train
station in Mumbai. But Veena’s story, unlike so many other
Indian girls, gets a new beginning. She was adopted by a Canadian family. Her mother, Nazneen Dayal is Indo-Canadian and
thought that the adoption would be a good match. Had she not
been adopted, Veena would have been kicked out of the orphanage at age 12, left to fend for herself, as the orphanage didn’t
have the funding to keep children longer than that.
On her first trip to the grocery store, Veena was amazed by
how much food there was. When Dayal started unloading the
groceries onto the conveyor belt, Veena burst into tears. “The
cashier said, ‘What’s wrong?’ and I said, ‘I don’t know!’” Dayal
says. “And then it dawned on me, she thought I was giving all
the food away.” She saw what the children ate at the orphanage,
“It was watered down lentils and rice and she’d have maybe one
or two meals per day.”
Of the 226 adoptions of Indian children that went through
last year, only 84 of them were boys. This is not because fewer
parents want to adopt boys, but because there aren’t as many
boys to adopt. Since girls are the unwanted sex in India, they’re
the ones who are abandoned and neglected the most.
McClungs Spring 2012 |17
The Indian government has implemented programs, such
as the cradle baby scheme that established centers to take in
unwanted babies. The Hindu newspaper reported that 3,200 girls
and 582 boys had been rescued. The government also passed the
Right to Education Act in 2009 which states that all children
between the ages of 6 and 14 will be guaranteed free and compulsory education. “Instead of 200 cases of female infanticide,
you had 200 survivors,” Srinivasan says about the cradle baby
scheme.
But when it comes to the root of this problem - dowries the government has not really addressed the problem. In 1961,
the government attempted to outlaw the giving and taking of
a dowry under the Dowry Prohibition Act. But according to
India’s National Crime Records Bureau there were 8,391 dowry
deaths reported in 2010. “It comes back to changing attitudes.
I’m not saying the law is useless, but it is only as good as it’s
implemented,” Srinivasan says, “India does not have a good
track record with implementation. We’re just sloppy when it
comes to that.”
Many families spend several years’ worth of income to pay
for a daughter’s dowry and wedding. “So grooms think, ‘I need
an Audi. In my lifetime, I can never buy an Audi, so I will ask it
as part of my dowry.’ Where marriage is still the norm, parents
are going to say, ‘You know what, it’s such a good match, I think
we should try,’” Srinivasan says. But how many families can
afford to give an Audi as part of the dowry deal? “Parents spend
so much on daughters but feel like they never get anything back,
but daughters may not be giving back in cash, but they do give
a lot of emotional support,” she says.
Krawitz and the Society for the Protection of the Girl Child
is encouraging spiritual leaders to start talking to their followers
about the importance of keeping girls healthy, safe and cherished in the family instead of abused and discarded. She is also
working on establishing the country’s first crisis line for parents,
for girls or for anybody experiencing distress or needing advice
because a little girl has been born or is being neglected. It will be
launched next January in Uttar Pradesh first because that state
has a particularly distorted gender imbalance, she says. “It’s not
18| McClungs Spring 2012
an issue that’s just about India,” he says. “It’s a human issue;
it’s an issue about humanity. It’s an issue about little children
being given the right to live and grow up into productive human
beings who are protected and safe in this world.”
A study published in the Canadian Medical Association
Journal last year stated that over the next 20 years, India and
China may have a population made up of nearly 20 per cent
more men than women.
“I was watching trains go by from our [hotel room] and
train after train after train I was looking into the windows of
them and they were all men,” Krawitz says. “I didn’t see any
women and I was thinking if it’s so apparent now, what is India
going to be like in 20 years if we don’t do anything?” M
INFOGRAPHIC
already know that everyone (yes, even Grandma) is on
GENDERED You
Facebook. You can follow celebrities on Twitter to see what they
NETWORKS are doing when they are not, um, being famous. Or if you are
lucky, catch a play-by-play of a Kanye-style breakdown. Thanks to the prevalence and easy access to the
web, more people than ever are tweeting, liking, and sharing all kinds of information on social networks. But
the gender that comes out on top in terms of social internet use is women.
By ERIC ZAWORSKI
European
women
across
all age groups spend more
time on social networking
sites than men, 5.7 hours
per month compared to 4.1
hours for men.
In North America, the
reach of social media
among women is 91
per cent, compared to
87.5 per cent of men.
With professional women comprising a major presence on
practically every social media
network, surprisingly only 36
per cent of LinkedIn’s 90 million users are female.
Zynga, the company behind
several mega-popular Facebook
games such as FarmVille and Mafia Wars, says
60 per cent
of its players
are female.
Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, has said
that not only do women comprise the majority of Facebook users,
they drive 62 per cent of the site’s activity in the form of messages, updates, and posts.
Women text about 30
per cent more than
men, with an average
of 717 text messages
sent and received per
month, compared to
552 for men. And yes,
the survey included
guys prone to the famous one-letter “K”
texts.
Speaking of cellphones,
55 per cent of mobile
social network activity
is done by women.
Take note! IMVU, the
world’s largest 3D chat
and dress-up community, is the social network with the highest
percentage of Englishspeaking female users.
68 per cent of women use social media to stay in touch with
friends, as opposed to 54 per cent of men.
Illustrations by JESSICA KU
McClungs Spring 2012 |19
Q&A
The founder of the
organization, Hope for the
Sold, Brock hopes to bring
more awareness to the
issues of sex trafficking.
SAM: Do you think growing up in Africa and witnessing
different forms of injustice and poverty have an effect on
you and this project, Hope for the Sold?
MICHELLE: Absolutely. Already as an eight-year-old I
realized that not everyone is born into equal opportunity.
Every day on the way to school, I experienced the internal struggle that comes with being approached by children
begging for money. A white, middle-class existence is a
bubble, and growing up in Ethiopia allowed me to see what
‘normal’ is for millions around the world. My family was
even part of helping free someone who had been falsely imprisoned. I believe that my childhood in Africa began to
develop and prepare my little heart for the work that I am
part of now.
SAM: How did you go about starting an awareness campaign?
MICHELLE: After watching TRADE, my husband (then
boyfriend) and I simply began to tell people what we knew.
We kicked it off with an awareness banquet for about 150
20| McClungs Spring 2012
people, followed by loads of reading and research. I started
an anti-trafficking club at the university of Guelph, where I
was student. This eventually led to us making a documentary about sex trafficking in Canada and starting a blog about
sexual exploitation at www.hopeforthesold.com. It all just
started with one awareness event, pulled off with a bunch
of friends!
SAM: What was most challenging about the 11,000 kilometre trek across the country, to film a documentary on sex
trafficking in Canada?
MICHELLE: I thought we would have a hard time securing interviews, but almost everyone we pursued responded
with a “yes.” The hard part was flip-flopping between the
emotion of the issue itself and the more ‘normal’ parts of
being on the road. Like the GPS losing its connection when
we were already late for an interview, or me getting a massive cold while driving through Northern Ontario at 2 a.m.
Losing important footage and/or audio was also very frustrating, though fortunately this only happened once. I was
Photo provided by SOURCE
so grateful to do it alongside my husband Jay, who had been
part of this anti-trafficking journey since the very beginning.
rward . If they’re going to survive in
SAM: How was the first film received? Were people
shocked to learn that this exploitation was happening here?
MICHELLE: When we first started showing it, most
people didn’t know this happened here at all. Now most
people have at least heard the term ‘human trafficking.’ The
response has been varied, but always powerful. It hits a
father of a young child differently than it would a student,
or teacher, or police officer. The beautiful thing is that we
each have a role to play.
SAM: You are at work on your second film, which addresses the legalization of prostitution and the implications of it.
What inspired you to start work on this film?
MICHELLE: The issue of legalization was the number
one question we were getting wherever we spoke, and is in
fact most likely going before the Supreme Court of Canada, so it is a pressing matter. We are very passionate about
preventing sex trafficking from ever happening in the first
place, and hope that our film can help reduce demand for
paid sex. Obviously there will always be men who seek out
prostituted women, but if the majority is discouraged from
doing this, traffickers will have less monetary incentive to
set up shop in Canada.
eral studies demonstrate that over 95% of women in the sex
trade worldwide want out but have no exit strategy. Sweden
also launched an awareness campaign about equality and
women’s rights, and trafficking has become less profitable
as a result of these efforts.
SAM: Do people realize how young victims can be? Does
this change anything?
MICHELLE: Victims can be very, very young. Some are
too young to even talk. Most sex trafficking victims would
be in their teens and early 20s. I personally do not think that
exploiting someone else is right, no matter what their age.
Some people are less compassionate when a victim is over
18. But what if they entered the trade at 11? They never
even had the opportunity to truly be children. M
SAM: Are sex trafficking victims considered criminals in
some cases?
MICHELLE: Unfortunately, many have slipped through
the cracks of the legal system because police officers, lawyers, social workers, and judges have simply not been aware
of what trafficking looks like. Many have been deported,
only to be re-trafficked once they’ve reached home. Fortunately, we are now moving in the right direction, as people
on the front lines are beginning to recognize warning signs
and Canadians are slowly becoming more organized in their
response.
SAM: How would Canada’s laws compare to say, Sweden’s?
MICHELLE: About a decade ago, Sweden decided that
prostitution is violence against women. They criminalized
the men who buy sex and decriminalized the selling of it, so
that men would be held accountable for their actions. The
fines they have to pay help fund exit programs for women
who want out of the trade but have been unable to. Sev-
McClungs Spring 2012 |21
FEATURES
A
By RHIANNON RUSSELL
There are 582 documented
cases of Aboriginal women
missing or murdered in Canada. What happened and
why isn’t more being done?
22| McClungs Spring 2012
crowd of people stand outside
Toronto police headquarters in
the cold Valentine’s Day air.
Snow falls gently, settling and melting
on toques and hair. The placards some
clutch in gloved hands bear silhouettes of a head and shoulders—these
figures, identified only by name and
date, represent the Aboriginal women
who have disappeared, many of them
murdered.
Filmmaker Audrey Huntley
stands near the middle of the gathering, her reddish-brown hair tucked
under the black hood of her parka.
She sings the welcome song with the
women around her to call in their ancestors. Huntley is of European and
Anishnawbe descent and is the cofounder of No More Silence, a Toronto coalition that raises awareness
about and incites action for Canada’s
missing and murdered Aboriginal
women—582 at last count. The date of
the rally, February 14, coincides with
Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside Memorial March, which has been happening for 22 years to honour all women
who are gone. Huntley, a survivor of
violence, says this rally is about taking
the time to remember them, much like
the other rallies, vigils and marches
across the country.
For years, activists have struggled to get the Canadian government
to recognize what they say is a grave,
systemic problem. Statistics show Aboriginal women are five times more
likely than non-Aboriginal women to
die violent deaths. As well, between
1997 and 2000, their rates of homicide were almost seven times higher,
and they are almost three times more
likely to be killed by a stranger. Activists argue the government is ignoring
these women and the violence they
face. Amid funding cuts and broken
promises, activists do not think Aboriginal women are a priority for the
Canadian government.
The reality for many Aborigi-
nal women is not pretty. An article
written by Huntley describes the case
of Helen Betty Osborne, a girl from
The Pas in Manitoba. Osborne was
brutally sexually assaulted and then
stabbed to death with a screwdriver by
four young boys and the town stayed
silent. Huntley writes that one boy’s
mother simply washed his clothing,
ridding it of any evidence. Now, Aboriginal women want their voices
heard.
In 2005, the Liberal government pledged $5 million over five
years to the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) for their
highly publicized campaign, Sisters in
Spirit to create a database to document
Aboriginal women who went missing
or who were murdered over the past
20 to 30 years. But in 2010, the federal government cut funding and the
research and growing database came
to a halt. Instead, the Conservative
Party pledged $10 million over two
years, $4 million of which would go to
the RCMP to create a missing persons
database. This money sounded impressive but Aboriginal activists say
that in practice, the initiative failed.
NWAC president Jeannette Corbiere
Lavell commends the police database,
but notes it is not specific to Aboriginal women as was promised. She estimates Aboriginal women’s advocacy
groups only saw about $800,000 of
the $10 million.
Now, no one knows how
many of the women are missing.
The Sisters in Spirit database
documented 582 in 2010, but this number has undoubtedly been surpassed.
The lack of adequate action compelled
NWAC and the Feminist Alliance for
International Action (FAFIA), as well
as the Downtown Eastside Women’s
Centre and the Women’s Memorial
March Committee, to appeal to the
United Nations Committee on the
Elimination of Discrimination Against
Women (CEDAW). This committee
is a body that examines the track record of its signatory countries on their
treatment of women. The committee,
which once investigated 800 unsolved
female homicides in Ciudad Juarez,
Mexico, has initiated an inquiry procedure into Canada’s missing and
murdered women.
The UN session began in
February of this year, and FAFIA cofounder and Human Rights Committee
chair Shelagh Day says if the UN determines “grave or systematic” rights
violations are occurring in Canada, it
will then decide to launch an inquiry.
“We clearly do need help,” Day says.
“We have a human rights crisis on our
hands.”
However, to enter the country,
CEDAW must have federal consent.
Though the Canadian government
may not welcome an examination of
its dirty laundry, it will risk looking
bad on the world stage if it refuses.
But, according to Day, “[CEDAW]
can carry on the inquiry whether or
not Canada says no,” she says. In that
case, CEDAW would work outside the
country, relying on documentation and
statistics.
Huntley hopes CEDAW will
take note of another inquiry happening in Vancouver (the Missing Women
Commission of Inquiry) regarding the
Robert Pickton case. Huntley, who
lived in the Downtown Eastside at
the time, says so far, that inquiry has
failed. The lead Aboriginal lawyer resigned from the inquiry, citing a lack
of adequate hearing time for Aboriginal panels, a focus on police evidence,
and lack of input from Aboriginal
communities. Critics and Aboriginal
leaders have called the inquiry a sham.
During the process, it came to light
that the RCMP had Pickton, who was
convicted in 2007 of murdering six
women but bragged of killing 49, under surveillance for three years before
his arrest and had interviewed him
after he stabbed a woman in the late
‘90s at his pig farm. Huntley says an
RCMP officer warned Pickton about
informants and even revealed to him
who they were. Terry Blythe, Vancouver police chief from 1999 to 2002, recently denied police did not do enough
to stop Pickton’s killing spree.
A February 8 letter from
NWAC and FAFIA to CEDAW expressed their desire for third-party intervention. It reads: “We have lobbied,
written, spoken out, walked across the
country, held hundreds of vigils for the
disappeared and murdered women, intervened with police, appeared before
Parliamentary Committees, and met
with government officials, repeatedly.” The letter stated despite years of
effort, Canada does not yet have a coordinated national plan with concrete
measures to address the root causes
and remedy the consequences of the
violence against Aboriginal women
and girls.
But these women are not forgotten. There are online forums dedicated to the missing and murdered.
This includes NWAC’s “We Remember,” a page describing a few of the
countless women: Beatrice Sinclair,
an elderly woman whose murder was
never solved, Daleen Kay Bosse, who
was studying to become a teacher before her remains were found in a rural
clearing in Saskatoon and was awarded a posthumous teaching degree and
Shelley Joseph, described as a “beautiful woman with long brown hair and
many gifts.” A year and a half after her
murder in Hamilton, Joseph’s eldest
son killed himself.
To get to the heart of the
problem, one must ask some unsettling questions. Why women? Why
Aboriginal women? Huntley, Corbiere
Lavell and the women speaking at the
McClungs Spring 2012 |23
rally have answers: Aboriginal women
are devalued in society, stereotyped
and often seen as sexually available.
Perpetrators know they can get away
with kidnapping or killing Aboriginal women, because law enforcement
turns a blind eye. The list goes on.
The Indian Act of 1876
stripped women of their rights to vote
and own property, and further enforced gender discrimination through
matrimonial rights. For example, if an
Indian woman married a non-Indian
man, she would lose her status and
so would her children, while an Indian man who married a non-Indian
woman would retain his. Amendments
to the Act in 1985 merely pushed the
preferential treatment of men back one
generation. In Sharon McIvor’s case,
she was granted status but not her
children. She took the case to court
in 2006 and won, allowing the “second generation” to retain and reclaim
its status. In 2010, she filed a complaint with the UN, arguing Canada’s
eligibility requirements for Indian
status were still discriminatory saying, “We’ve been relegated to a place
in society that people don’t think they
need to acknowledge us or respect
us.”
Yet the residual effects of
the Indian Act aren’t the only things
lingering. Residential schools, a byproduct of the Indian Act, continue to
have lasting consequences. Domestic
24| McClungs Spring 2012
violence, alcoholism, depression and
suicide have all made their mark. Corbiere Lavell says Aboriginal women in
today’s society are vulnerable because
of a lack of social resources and years
of colonization. For women leaving
their reserves to escape violence, she
says, it’s difficult to integrate into big
cities. Many end up on the streets. A
2009 report by Anette Sikka at the
University of Ottawa found a disproportionately high number of Aboriginal women are involved in prostitution in Canada’s urban centres.
“We’ve been relegated to
a place in society that
people don’t think they
need to acknowledge us
or respect us”
own roles in this,” Lord continued.
And not just our historical roles as
forefathers and colonizers, she says,
but our present role as people living
on this land. “More awareness is occurring,” says Corbiere Lavell. “People are saying, ‘We can’t let this continue. Something has to be done.’”
At the rally, women begin to
sing and drum again. Yellow-jacketed
police officers stand at the curb, chatting and keeping an eye on the peaceful gathering. The song is haunting,
and the crowd, though mournful, is
strong. These women are united and
they are fighting to be heard. M
So where do we go from here?
“It’s the question we’re all
grappling with,” Huntley says. Jennifer Lord, strategic policy liaison for
NWAC’s new initiative Evidence to
Action, agrees. “It’s an easy answer,
but it’s not simple,” she says, stressing Canadians must realize violence,
sexism and discrimination against Aboriginal women are Canadian human
rights issues. “We really need to see
Canadians take responsibility for our
Photos taken by RHIANNON RUSSELL
Mascara has a
SHORT SHELF-LIFE
compared to other cosmetics.
The FDA
recommends
disposing of mascara
EVERY 2 - 4 MONTHS
since bacteria can
build up in the tube.
This bacteria can lead to
EYE INFECTIONS,
such as
PINK EYE
PHOTO ESSAY
Photos taken by KATHERINE ENGQVIST, Illustrations by JESSICA CHIU
Make-up by DELANIE BOURK, Styled by PORTIA FAVRO
McClungs Spring 2012 |25
26| McClungs Spring 2012
PHOTO ESSAY
Photos taken by KATHERINE ENGQVIST, Illustrations by JESSICA CHIU
Make-up by DELANIE BOURK, Styled by PORTIA FAVRO
Coal tar-derived colours contain
chemicals that have been linked
to cancer like
acute leukemia
and bladder cancer.
Less SEVERE and more COMMON
short-term reactions
to the product are
itching,
burning,
scalping,
hives, and
blistering of the skin
PHOTO ESSAY
Photos taken by KATHERINE ENGQVIST, Illustrations by JESSICA CHIU
Make-up by DELANIE BOURK, Styled by PORTIA FAVRO
McClungs Spring 2012 |27
Often perfumes have ingredients
that are unlisted, such as phthalates.
Phthalates
are chemicals that have been linked to
breast cancer and birth defects.
Health Canada recently
announced regulations
banning six phthalates
in children’s toys, but the
same standards aren’t
applied to cosmetics.
28| McClungs Spring 2012
PHOTO ESSAY
Photos taken by KATHERINE ENGQVIST, Illustrations by JESSICA CHIU
Make-up by DELANIE BOURK, Styled by PORTIA FAVRO
Propylene glycol,
is known to irritate the skin and is used in a variety of shaving creams.
Other irritants in these creams are gases, isobutane and isopentane,
which are used as propellants in aerosol shaving creams
PHOTO ESSAY
Photos taken by KATHERINE ENGQVIST, Illustrations by JESSICA CHIU
Make-up by DELANIE BOURK, Styled by PORTIA FAVRO
McClungs Spring 2012 |29
FEATURES
By TASHIKA GOMES
Toronto may not be a high-fashion hotspot,
but the city knows how to get real when it comes to body type
H
er sheer blouse drapes elegantly over her shoulders, stopping just short of her metallic skirt. Dozens of photographers
throw flashes of light her way as she sways down the runway with pouting lips. Her inner thighs graze each other as she
places one stilettoed heel in front of the other. She has a piercing
gaze and a curvy body, one that some would say does not belong
on a runway.
Fashion is an industry built on thinness. From thin fabrics to
thin models, sometimes the catwalk can be pretty homogenous.
But an emerging trend in Toronto has the industry seeing more
“real” sized female bodies.
At the Orange Models Management office, Wiktor Trzaska,
a booking agent, receives two calls from clients requesting models. One asks for “smaller body types,” anywhere from size two
and six. In most markets, these sizes are generally accepted as
“normal.” The other call is from a bridal show casting director,
who requests models sized four through eight. To some, size eight
is considered a plus size. “I think Toronto is looking healthy ...
30| McClungs Spring 2012
whether it is on the runway or in the commercials that are shot
here,” says Trzaska.
Toronto is primarily a commercial market, as opposed to its
high fashion counterparts. In high-end couture fashion, sample
sizes are zero to four. Measurements such as 34-24-34 are the
norm, a standard that is applied across the board. However, most
clients in Toronto are searching for average-sized models that
appeal to the masses to sell or promote their products. This means
models are literally given more room in terms of their measurements.
The word “real” has become almost synonymous with the
word “healthy.” The modelling industry has a bad reputation for
the unhealthy methods some models adopt in order to continually
fit the strict aesthetic criteria. In Toronto, the industry is saturated
with commercial modelling, thus encouraging a healthier body
image and, as a result, healthier models.
Tatiana Lukic, 24, has been a model for almost a decade and
works primarily out of Toronto, New York and Montreal. She says
that although being in the industry has made her self-conscious
of her body, it has also made her more aware of the importance
of maintaining a healthy lifestyle with proper diet and exercise.
Photo taken by KATHERINE ENGQVIST
This perspective is on the rise in the city. Industry forerunners are pioneering this shift. “I definitely feel like it’s more in the
forefront here in North America. Toronto, Canada is more commercial so it’s a little bit more attainable,” says Jessica Biffi, a
Canadian designer.
Being outside the norm does not mean being outside of the
industry. Edie started working as a model at age 17, at size zero
to two. Today, she is 40 years old and models at size six to eight.
She stopped modelling for a period of time because of the high
standards agencies had for body size. “They accept plus size now.
It’s more acceptable to be bigger,” says Edie. After being out of
the business for years, Edie landed an ad campaign as a plus-sized
model. She feels the fashion industry has definitely changed for
the better. “I am bigger but I feel better about myself,” she says.
Plus sizes on the runway have always been a hopeful signal
of change in the industry. Voluptuous, a local fashion forward
plus size boutique, has been widely successful with locations
across Ontario, joining more plus size staple brands like Addition
Elle and newcomer Allie Style. “The industry is just really starting to open up now,” says Biffi who is also a plus-sized woman.
She is currently working on a new plus size clothing line to follow
up to her previous line.
No one seems to have a singular answer as to why the industry has developed this way. In a commercial market, the demand
for more realistic body expectations offers an environment that
does not pressure models to be unhealthy. Biffi says she would
like to see bigger names on the international scene take steps in
this direction and not just jump on the bandwagon when it suits
them. “I think it takes a couple more people on board to kind of
open people’s eyes to [real sized models],” says Biffi, “Boundaries need to be pushed.”
At the Orange Models office, Trzaska makes a coffee run to
Tim Horton’s and office receptionist and model, Olga, debated
whether she should get a doughnut. She smiles sheepishly with
“I’ve known girls who have passed out or died abroad because
they are trying to stay so thin, especially in markets like China,
Japan, and India, where the girls are very young. There’s a lot
of pressure on them, so they give into the pressure and they collapse,” says Lukic.
For model Heather Jean O’Donnell, an industry that is more
open to various body types is particularly important; she has
been struggling with eating disorders her entire life. Even though
O’Donnell is happy with her agency, Orange Models, she has had
unfavourable experiences with other agencies in the past because
of their policies on body measurements. “I don’t want to feel that
pressure, that someone else is controlling who I am. I don’t think
that’s healthy,” says O’Donnell.
her hands on her waist. She has a photoshoot later that week.
Trzaska hands Olga her usual fruit explosion muffin and as she
bites in to it, a smile comes across her face. She rustles through
the bag and yells, “Where’s my doughnut?” It is not healthy, but
with no pressure to stay thin, why not treat yourself? M
McClungs Spring 2012 |31
SHE SAID
By DAWN-FLORA ANGUE
gREAT
Looking at me now, you would probably never think I am a pageant girl.
Raised in a family with three brothers and
seven male cousins, it was inevitable for
me to try to fit into a “man’s world.” I was
never the type of girl to play dress up or
try on my mom’s heels.
So, why did I compete in six beauty
pageants over four years?
Pageants were never on my bucket
list. I could have lived my entire life not
setting foot on a huge stage to be judged
on how well I can flaunt a gown. But I was
“discovered” in a restaurant and was asked
if I wanted to compete in a local Filipino
pageant, where I had the chance to raise
money for those in need in the Philippines. My mom told me to take advantage
of this opportunity. So, I put aside the preconceptions I had about beauty pageants
and signed up.
I joined my first pageant at 16 and
like any other teen, I was awkward and
still trying to figure out how to fit in without looking like a fool. Pageants helped
me overcome this. I spent endless hours
practicing to walk in four-inch heels. I
memorized routines and choreography. I
attended speaking lessons which taught
me how to articulate myself eloquently.
The amount of time I spent training and
preparing for the stage helped me to gain
confidence and get me out of my shell.
Like so many other people, I thought
that pageants were superficial. With this
mentality, I was reluctant to participate
in any pageants that involved me strutting around in a two-piece bathing suit
with stiletto heels. I was selective with
the events I would participate in. The pageants I joined had to meet my terms: at
least 25 per cent of the girls’ total score
32| McClungs Spring 2012
had to be from their answers to a Q&A and
there had to be a non-mandatory bathing
suit portion.
I competed to the best of my ability
in every single pageant I took part in. I
did my best in the several dress portions,
but found my strongest skills were in the
Q&A segments that usually tackled controversial issues such as feminism and
religion.
Until I competed on these stages, with
a row of people judging me on how I look
and spoke, I did not realize how much of
everyday is like a beauty pageant. Think
of it this way: would you go to a job interview in jeans and a t-shirt? Probably not.
You would want to impress your potential employer with how you well you can
present yourself. Beauty pageants are the
same. Many of the girls who I competed
with have a real message to promote. Pageants are a way to promote a cause that
may not otherwise get attention.
The makeup, the dresses, the big
hair – some look down on these things
and trust me, I did too. But after actually
winning the title of Miss Maria Clara in
2006 and winning first-runner up for Miss
Canada Tourism, I can personally say that
pageants have changed me for the better. I
am still not the true girly girl who spends
mounds of time on my makeup and hair
every morning. Rather, I can now hold
my head high knowing I am confident in
who I am and what I believe. And yes, I do
thank the pageants for that.
Photos taken by NICK SPECTOR
SHE SAID
Two former beauty queens share
what they think of pageantry today
By SAM ANDERSON
Not-so-great
I was 15 when I was crowned Miss
Teen Klondike and Miss Teen Talent.
Wearing my sister’s evening gowns and
costume accessories I competed with nine
other girls (know as delegates) for the elusive titles.
I attended dance rehearsals with the
local can-can dancers. I was coached in
interviewing and make-up techniques.
(Who knew the importance of penciling
your eyebrows?), I was given lessons on
how to walk. I was pampered and primed
with mani-pedis, and a professional photoshoot. Lastly, my competitors and I
walked through town in a parade, being
encouraged to wave like Queens.
I’ll admit my teenaged self enjoyed
the attention. I felt like a role model.
Young girls with muddy faces ran up to
me and asked for my picture; I obliged.
On pageant night, dancing to Kelly
Clarkson’s “Miss Independent” I felt I
represented the song.
But in reality, I, along with the other girls, were being judged on how we
looked; my schedule not only told me what
to do, it told me what to wear. An evening
gown for the parade, “something respectable” for a gala. However, there was no
swimsuit component. My pageant and
others like it are, in part, a glossy competition largely based on image and how the
judges respond to your looks. The Miss
Teen Canada World Pageant states that on
their finals night “contestants from across
the nation come together for an incredible
evening of inspiration, glamour and personal accomplishment.” But there is more
to young women than how well they can
walk across a stage, or how graceful they
seem.
I knew my family and friends were
in the audience that night. I also knew
the judges were out there too. I was being
showcased, in a sparkling blue gown and
an up do, because ringlets were the thing
to do. “We just performed a miracle on
your hair” the hairdresser told me earlier
that day. “Now go put on your make-up.”
I went over to the mirror and made sure
to pay special attention to my “problem
areas”. My nails weren’t long enough for a
French, the manicurist said, but she would
do the best she could. I wasn’t perfect, but
I figured I was closer to it than I had been
before.
I was pretty on pageant night. It was
what I had been getting ready for all along.
I only believed I was pretty when a female
photographer took my headshot for our
promos; “smile, you are beautiful,” she
said. For some reason, it seemed she was
the only one who meant it. In that picture,
I didn’t need to do anything to change my
appearance.
Sure, pageants don’t have to be all
that bad. I did raise awareness about the
World Wildlife Fund and got to practice
public speaking. In addition to charities,
some pageants offer scholarships. But
why should these good things have to
be associated with good hair? Besides,
it’s tough enough being a woman in this
world. I’d rather not be pitted against my
peers.
On pageant night when we stood in
a row under the stage lights in our gowns
looking out into the audience I wondered
if the omniscient judges would approve of
us. Or, rather, of how we had presented
ourselves. I still have my sash and tiara
tucked away in a Princess shoebox somewhere. I think they’ll just stay there. M
McClungs Spring 2012 |33
HER STORY
PLAY ING
THE
V-CARD
34| McClungs Spring 2012
Photos taken by KATHERINE ENGQVIST
By GIN SEXSMITH
Gin Sexsmith shares the
story of when she lost her
virginity and looks into
what the big “V” means
for young women today
A
t 16, I lost my virginity to someone
on a damp, grassy hill beside our old
public school. We were not dating,
and by no means was I “in love.” Virginity, I thought, was overrated – sex was
everywhere, and I wanted to know what
all the commotion was about. I knew
what I was getting myself into as I updated
my MSN status to a cheeky line from my
favourite Dragonette song: “I know your
friends and you know mine too. You don’t
tell on me and I won’t tell on you.” I did
not care that losing my virginity was supposed to be some monumental moment.
We continued things with no strings
attached for the next two years. It was a
fun adrenaline rush. It gave me the highest highs, but the lows would always kick
in shortly after I sneaked back into my
house. “That was the last time,” I’d say
into my pillow. I always felt that he should
love me. But this person never knew who I
really was – our conversations went from
small talk to sex.
I had felt so secure in my decision,
but as the years went on and his late-night
advances never turned into flowers and
chocolates, my anxiety grew. The shame
that I told myself at 16 I’d never feel was
catching up to me. By 18, I replayed every
word we had ever said to each other, every
late-night text, and was overcome by the
need to make him love me. I’d always felt
that if a man could have sex just for the
sake of having sex, then I should be able
to as well. Was that naive?
Recently I was talking about virginity
with my boyfriend of the past two years.
During our conversation, he innocently
dropped a “I wish you would’ve been a
virgin, that would’ve been awesome.” It
was like he simultaneously slapped me
in the face and punched me in the stomach. I balled my hands into fists to stop
them from shaking and steadily replied,
“But you don’t wish you would’ve been
a virgin, do you?” His answer was what
I expected: “No.” I tried to stay calm, but
within moments, my body was shaking as
the sadness and anger escaped me through
hollow sobs.
If losing my virginity nonchalantly
was not the right choice – would waiting
for love have been?
ed to gain some level of sexual experience
and mastery beginning in adolescence and
may be labelled as socially awkward or
inept should they fail to acquire this experience before attaining adulthood,” Payne
says.
Dr. Oren Amitay, a registered clinical psychologist and Ryerson professor,
relates these expectations to the double
standard between men and women. “Anyone who thinks the double standard is
gone is a fool,” he says.
The way I lost my virginity was
unconventional in the sense that I lost it
to get in the game, but many girls feel
pressure to be in love, or at least in a relationship, before they go all the way. This
I tried to stay calm, but within moments,
my body was shaking as the sadness and
anger escaped me through hollow sobs.
Dr. Jessica O’Reilly, a Toronto-based
sexologist, does not think so. “The bottom
line is that each person is different and
experiences a unique sexual evolution.
Having sex for the first time is just one
small piece of this personal journey,” she
says. As women, we are either explicitly
or implicitly faced with ideals, one of the
major ones is that we should be in love
with the person we first have sex with.
But ideals can lead to stigma and confusion. “Stigmas over virginity are really
just stigmas surrounding sex,” O’Reilly
says, adding that these stigmas lead to a
lot of irrational fear and judgement which
shames men and women into sexual conformity. This conformity can negatively
impact relationships, self-esteem, and
overall health.
Sex is everywhere, but women and
men are still expected to play by the rules.
“Over the years, the expectations on women have softened ... they are no longer
expected to wait until marriage, but sexual
activity is still expected to take place within the context of some relationship,” says
Dr. Kim Payne, a clinical psychologist and
sex therapist. Men fall into the opposite
extreme. “Men, however, remain expect-
was the case with Heather Brown, who,
at 16, was anxious to have sex. When she
started dating a guy four years older than
her, anxiety shifted from who she would
lose it to, to when she would lose it. “You
don’t want to be the girl that just hasn’t
lost her virginity yet,” she says, thinking
back to grade 10 and remembering a lot of
girls who were already having sex.
The major decision maker for Brown was
her boyfriend cheating on her. “Before we
had sex, he cheated on me. I decided I’d
do whatever he wanted so he wouldn’t
cheat on me again. He never said that he
cheated on me because we hadn’t had sex,
but I always figured that. It wasn’t unfortunate at the time, but I wish I could take
it back now,” Brown says, her voice quiet.
“That relationship ruined my high school
experience and probably ruined a lot of
things about me – it’s probably why I’m
so angry all of the time, potentially why
I don’t like having sex ... definitely why I
don’t like having sex actually,” she adds,
her voice laced with resentment.
Natalie Cole* ignored peer pressure
throughout her teens and, at 20, recently
lost her virginity. “If you’re 15 or16 when
you lose your virginity, you’re thinking
McClungs Spring 2012 |35
“Over the years, the expectations on women have softened ... they are
no longer expected to wait until marriage, but sexual activity is still
expected to take place within the context of some relationship”
that everything that’s happening is normal, when it might not be. You don’t know
yourself,” she says.
But being true to yourself is easier
said than done when you are young and
bombarded with hyper-sexualized images.
“I deal with clients and students of different ages, and I’m finding more and more
these days that the stigma is that younger
women, and [women] in their 20s, are
feeling bad that they haven’t lost their virginity – that stigma used to be more for
men.” says Dr. Amitay.
But Cole says that she did not feel
like her virginity was anyone else’s business and that waiting for love was the
right choice for her.
“I feel like a lot of people think that if
you’re a virgin you’ve never seen a dick,
you’ve never fooled around, but that’s not
always what it is,” Cole says. “I experienced life, but for me losing my virginity
wasn’t about taking that extra step when I
was hammered, it was something more for
me,” she says.
Dr. Amitay agrees that, for older
women, the concept of virginity is less
36| McClungs Spring 2012
traumatic because they have a better idea
of what they want – but still many people
are not willing to wait until they know
what they want. “For most people, it’s not
‘I’m holding onto this precious thing,’ it’s
‘I want to get rid of this thing,” he says.
But just ‘getting rid’ of it should be done
with care. Dr. Amitay has hundreds of clients and has found that the stereotype of
women clinging to the man they lose their
virginity to, is still alive. “I didn’t want to
get hurt after,” says Cole. “I have a lot of
friends who say that after they lost their
virginity, they got really attached to that
person, and I thought, ‘I don’t want to be
attached to any of these people that I’m
hooking up with.’” Cole told her boyfriend she was a virgin two weeks into
the relationship. “He was super awesome
about it,” she says excitedly, flashing a
grin. “We talked about it a lot and he was
like ‘Whenever you’re ready’.” She knew
it was time after three months of dating,
when she felt like she really knew him.
I can not help thinking Cole’s situation sounds perfect, but what is perfect
for one person does not always cut it for
another. Brown, who now says she is in a
healthy, loving relationship, is happy that
she had previous sexual experience. “No
matter what anybody says, if you’re a virgin when you get with somebody, you’re
always going to be curious about other
people,” she says, which jolted me back
to my heated conversation with my boyfriend when I had said those exact words.
Stigmas surrounding virginity should
be put to bed. If you decide to wait or
not, it does not change the person you
are. Because of these stigmas, we all run
the risk of over-analysis, says Dr. Amitay, and he has seen this manifest itself
in extreme ways. “At worst it can come
back as self-loathing; otherwise you can
question yourself, doubt yourself, have
anxiety over whether or not you did the
right thing,” he says.
To avoid regrets, Cole thinks that it
comes down to knowing yourself. “When
you know, you know,” she says seeming
content with the choices she has made. Dr.
O’Reilly cannot agree more. “You’re the
expert in you, so you need to be true to
yourself,” she says. M
*Real names were changed
D-I-Y
Do it Yourself
By TAMMY LUNG
TOOLS
Measuring tape
STEP 1:
Hold the measuring tape parallel to
the ground. Wrap the tape directly under your bust and record the measurement. If the measurement is even, add
4 inches. If the measurement is odd,
add 5 inches. This is your band measurement. (i.e. Measurement = 28”,
add 4, which = 32” band.)
STEP 2:
Measure the fullest part of your bust.
Round to the nearest whole number.
This is your cup measurement. (i.e.
Measurement = 33”)
Chart below shows you your cup size:
STEP 3:
Subtract your band measurement
from your cup measurement, the difference will be your cup size. (i.e. 33
– 32” = 1”, which = A cup) Your overall
bra size is your initial band measurement and cup size. (i.e. 32A)
Illustrations by YBB VILLEGAS
Difference (inches)
Cup Size
0” – ½”
AA
½” – 1”
A
2”
B
3”
C
4”
D
5”
DD or E
6”
DDD or F
McClungs Spring 2012 |37
FEATURES
Feminism across the Generations
What does feminism mean to different generations of women?
By LISA COXON
S
SARAH FADEL
arah Fadel is a leader. She believes women have the
right to pursue positions of power and influence, and
understands the effect gender stereotypes can have on
women doing so. This is quite impressive considering she’s
only 17-years-old.
Fadel attends Branksome Hall, an independent all-girls
school in the Rosedale area of Toronto. Here, leadership is
taught as a way of life, where young women learn that they
are valuable and can be anything they want to be. To Fadel, a
feminist is “somebody who believes in equal opportunity for
everybody.”
Fadel first learned about feminism in her early childhood.
Her two grandmothers were among a handful of women in medical school in Egypt in the 1950s, which was a male-dominated
field of study and place of work. “They both had to overcome
gender stereotypes and work twice as hard as their male peers
to be taken as seriously,” says Fadel.
Because of her education at Branksome, Fadel aims to pick
leadership roles wherever she can. She co-chaired the World
Affairs Conference, which began in spring 2011 and continued
into winter 2012, where controversial speakers debated topics
such as the American election and the question, “is feminism
dead?” She has also been part of Model UN, a simulation of
the United Nations held in Montreal where committees debate
different issues, and Ontario Model Parliament, where mock
provincial politics are held at Queen’s Park.
Of feminism’s popularity at the school, Fadel says, “I
wouldn’t say it’s like a clothing item, but all of my peers are as
eager as I am to find the opportunities in school, beyond school,
in university, and just take them all.”
These roles, as well as her subjects of interest, demonstrate
Fadel’s independent thinking, uninfluenced by gender roles.
Currently studying economics and applied mathematics, she
eventually hopes to pursue a career in finance. Of feminism’s
popularity at the school, Fadel says, “I wouldn’t say it’s like a
clothing item, but all of my peers are as eager as I am to find the
opportunities in school, beyond school, in university, and just
take them all.”
38| McClungs Spring 2012
ZOEY VILLENEUVE
Z
oey Villeneuve was a feminist long before she was an anarchist, but the two have become so inextricably linked for
her that she can no longer see herself as just one or the
other. Growing up with mostly male friends, Villeneuve, 25,
often felt alienated. She would never go along with the sexist
jokes they made. She began to read literature by Naomi Klein, a
feminist who wrote about consumerism and capitalism. “I was
kind of introduced to feminist politics through a broader analysis of systematic injustices,” she says.
Villeneuve identified as a feminist when she was 17, and
as an anarchist when she was 23. She became interested in
liberal feminism, which maintains that women have the power
to achieve equality, but that society itself need not change in
order to meet the needs of women. After being exposed to liberal feminism, she began to read more about government and
the oppression of women.
For Villeneuve, anarchism and feminism quickly became
two sides of the same coin. The feminist in her says the society we live in exploits women’s labour and bodies in order to
accrue more profit, and anarchism has encouraged her to reject
this capitalist society where a hierarchy of gender, class, ability,
and race exists. While she believes liberal feminism is a vital
stepping-stone for young feminists, her hope is that feminism
will eventually move towards a more radical and socialist rhetoric, one that focuses on things such as the economic conditions
that can force women into the sex industry.
To Villeneuve, the most important thing feminists can do is
to be non-judgmental. She believes anyone can be a feminist if
they actively try to change their own sexist behavior. “It’s vital
that we are not being critical of women for the decisions they
make that are influenced by the patriarchy,” says Villeneuve.
She feels we are not placing enough emphasis on ability, class,
gender, race, and how these social constructions intersect.
Photos taken by LISA COXON & LUCY LU
VICTORIA MORENO
V
ictoria Moreno was raised in what she describes as a “very
macho” Latin-American household where only women
were expected to clean. This, she remembers, is around
the time she started to rebel.
Moreno, 42, looked into feminism throughout her early
teens, but her more formal introduction to the movement came
in her first-year Women’s Studies course at York University.
Now the owner of Toronto Women’s Bookstore, Moreno
is in charge of ensuring the survival of a safe and comfortable
space where women can come together and explore a variety
of feminist literature. After threats of closure in 2009, Moreno
took over the business. She was first hired in 1989 and worked
part-time in her early years of university. This is a job that’s
come to mean a lot to her over the years. “It built an experience
I wanted to take with me wherever I looked for work,” says
Moreno. “I need to identify with wherever I’m working.”
Moreno feels particularly attached to feminist writer Bell
Hooks for her inclusive approach to feminism, which focuses
on community and love. Moreno also approaches feminism
from a racial and class perspective. During her first year at the
bookstore, Moreno remembers passing the Henry Morgentaler
Clinic on her way to work, where she often saw the pro-life
movement protesting outside. Referring to reproductive freedom and legalized abortion, Moreno says, “We have come a
ways, but those sorts of things are threatened again under the
Harper government.”
In 2011, CBC reported that federal government funding
for Planned Parenthood Canada exists only for projects that do
not advocate or provide abortion. At such a threatening time,
Moreno believes in recruiting a more diverse feminist movement, one that includes men. “I think it’s important to think
and believe that men can be feminists, considering they’re half
the population, and they’re in power.” Often the struggle lies
among the terminology. Is a man “feminist” or is he “pro-feminist,” Moreno asks. “That might be where the battles lie,” she
says. Although she does not feel society should “fight for that
battle.” Moreno knows one thing for sure, it is that we cannot
do it alone. “If we’re allies and we’re working together, then
that’s the main purpose for me,” says Moreno. “We need more
feminists, and that’s the most important thing.”
SHEILA KAPPLER
D
uring her time teaching at a Catholic high school, Sheila
Kappler stood at the back of the gymnasium during school
mass. The principal approached her and asked why she
was not participating in the prayers. Her response was, “I’m a
feminist. I don’t pray to God the Father.”
Kappler, a 60-year-old woman says her feminism was
strong enough to pull her away from her own religion, was
raised a devout Catholic and, at the age of 20, entered a convent
in Chatnam, Ontario. She began to discover feminism and the
Catholic Church’s oppressive history towards women. It was
in 1983, while she was living in Toronto obtaining her Master
of Arts in Catholic theology at the University of St. Michael’s
College, that she met academic feminism.
“And then I got really pissed off,” Kappler says, no longer
able to publicly identify with the Catholic Church, and much
more solidified as a feminist. In 1989 Kappler left the convent.
Ironically, she continued to teach within the Catholic school
system. “A job is a good thing, so I kept it,” she says.
Now retired, after working part-time as a professor of
Catholic theology at Brescia University in London, Ont., Kappler has time to reflect on her journey as a feminist. She stresses
the difference between ‘the’ and ‘a’ when it comes to feminism.
Kappler believes there are multiple feminisms, aware that her
own might be old-fashioned.
Despite the inclusivity of today’s feminism, Kappler struggles with the notion that a man can be a feminist. Though she
is more open to it than she was ten years ago, she admits that,
“everything in me says no,” to the concept.
“Male privilege is so engrained and so dominant… can a
white person understand the experience of a black person? I
can tell myself I do, I can read a lot, I can talk to a lot of black
people, but I don’t know what it’s like to be in that skin. I know
what it’s like to be in the oppressor’s skin,” she says.
No matter how old-fashioned she may think her beliefs are,
without feminism, Kappler says she never would have pursued
academic training. Feminism changed her. “It gave me an intellectual home and a community of like-minded people, and an
analytic framework to understand my experiences.” M
McClungs Spring 2012 |39
REVIEWS
Pink Ribbons Inc. by Léa Pool
You’ve seen the products. They are ubiquitous – scarves, stuffed animals, kitchen appliances, M&M’s and alcohol, all emblazoned with a pink ribbon. They are for breast cancer. We
connect this automatically.
Léa Pool’s documentary Pink Ribbons Inc. delves into the campaign to raise money for
breast cancer research and shows how the push for pink is all about marketing, and, in some
cases -- hypocritical marketing.
Beauty products containing carcinogens bear the pink ribbon stamp. Ford’s Warriors in
Pink campaign raises money for the cause, despite the fact that environmental factors such as
pollution can be linked to cancer. Most despicably, Kentucky Fried Chicken raised money for
breast cancer research by selling pink buckets of its unhealthy chicken. One risk factor for the
disease is a high-fat diet.
Pool juxtaposes the upbeat, cheering, pink-clad women at various Avon walks across the United
States with a stage IV breast cancer support group and articulate female talking heads who condemn what the push for breast cancer
research has become: in many cases – a money grab.
The most striking moments of the film feature this stage IV support group. The women in it say they do not appreciate how
the pink ribbon puts a pretty, feminine face on a disease that is anything but. Pool’s film also shares some statistics about breast cancer.
One in eight American women will get breast cancer in her lifetime, up dramatically from 1 in 22 in 1940.
Doctors still do not know what causes the disease, but the two greatest risk factors are being female and growing older.
I have never had breast cancer, but women very close to me have. Perhaps that is why the film made me so emotional – I
laughed, I cried, I got angry. But I hope that whether your life has been affected by breast cancer or not, you will not be able to help
feeling angry that a disease and the women who suffer from it are being exploited by this “pinkwashing.”
One thing is for sure – you will never look at a pink ribbon the same way again.
Family by Micol Ostow
Family by Micol Ostow is the captivating story of 17-year-old Melinda Jensen, who escapes an abusive and unstable home to find that the search for affection and acceptance often
comes at a steep price.
Set in the late 1960s and based on the Charles Manson murders which made headlines
around the world, Melinda’s tale is one of self-discovery and a yearning for love.
Melinda is isolated and hungry when she is found on the beach by charming Henry, the
novel’s manipulative antagonist. She allows this mysterious older stranger to rescue her. He offers her coffee, a safe home, and most importantly, a family.
Together they embark on a road trip to his San Francisco home, where Melinda is introduced to other adolescents—bitter Leila, friendly Shelly, and an all-American boy named Junior.
What begins as freedom of sexual expression, a supposed ethical and minimalistic lifestyle, and
mutual respect quickly spirals into a cult of hatred, violence, and danger.
The novel defies the typical paragraph aesthetic of fiction, instead written in a stream of consciousness, free verse format. The
flowing sentences, paired with a difficult subject matter, occasionally make it tough to read. However, Ostow effectively allows the
reader to see into Melinda’s broken heart and troubled mind throughout the course of Family.
40| McClungs Spring 2012
By SHANNON CLARKE
Writing The Revolution by Michele Landsberg
Growing up Jewish in a mostly Christian Toronto neighbourhood in the 1950s, Michele
Landsberg always felt out of place. It was this feeling of otherness and her outstanding talent that
landed an otherwise unqualified university grad her first reporting job at the Globe and Mail and
eventually a gig as the “woman columnist” at the Toronto Star. Writing the Revolution is a sample
of Landsberg’s articles covering the political, social and legal hurdles Canadian women have faced
over the last 27 years.
This Canadian perspective is a treat for anyone looking for more than a few paragraphs on
how the feminist movement here compares to that of the United States. Writing the Revolution is a
crash course in both the unique work and plight of women in this country. Readers are introduced
(or re-introduced) to women like Dularie Boodlal, Gillian Hadley, failed by both the legal and justice
systems and to activists Laura Sabia and Delphi Buchanan – among many others.
Landsberg is honest and open about her experience in a mostly male newsroom, covering issues that occasionally made her unpopular. But she also writes about the women who trusted her to speak on their behalf, the beliefs she
holds dear and the opinions she shed along the way. Her career has spanned a quarter-century, over 3,000 articles, three major publications,
seven honourary degrees and many accolades.
The future of feminism, she writes, is certain. Also certain: there will never be anyone quite like her.
By ACEY ROWE
Visions by Grimes
Clare Boucher, a.k.a. Grimes, makes pop music like a conceptual artist: her thematic concepts
are as influential to her sound as her musical style.
Born in Vancouver, the 23-year-old musician, producer and artist moved to Montreal in 2006
to study arts and science with a focus in philosophy at McGill University. She dropped out in 2010
to make music full-time and has since toured with Lykke Li and signed to the famed indie label 4AD.
Grimes’ latest release, Visions, comes after three albums all released within the past 15
months: Geidi Primes, Halfaxa, and Darkbloom - a split EP with D’Eon. Her music is popularly referred to, and self-described as, ‘postInternet,’ a label which Grimes has now come to detest, but which effectively capture her complex relationship with technology. Grimes is
an electronic musician who owns neither a cellphone nor an iPod.
In fact, Visions centers around this theme of “era confliction.” Instrumentally, Grimes’ sound is contemporary, drawing on synthesizers, looping, and sampling. Her vocals reflect classical styles, and her concepts are rooted in the distant past.
Conceptually, the clearest influence behind Visions is the 12th century German writer, composer, philosopher and nun Hildegard
von Bingen, on whom Grimes wrote extensively while attending McGill University. Inspired by Hildegard’s monastic life, Grimes experimented with techniques such as fasting and vision seeking, all while writing the album. Visions is largely based on the work Grimes
recorded during these experiments. Even the name of the album references Hildegard’s legendary prophetic visions.
The album as a whole is fascinating and better still if the tracks are separated and listened to individually. The ultimate Grimes
experience, however, is to see her live because she performs with an ornate delicacy that disguises the technical complexity of her music.
Essentially, if you are into simultaneously star-gazing and navel-gazing, dancing with your eyes closed, and feeling like the coolest girl in the room, then Visions is for you. If nothing else, an electronic album influenced by the original singing nun is worth checking
out.
McClungs Spring 2012 |41
CONFESSIONS AT THE CLUB
COMICS
comic 42
christopher rosier 2012
42| McClungs Spring 2012
McClungs Spring 2012 |43
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